


An Unknown Known

by awriterthatwrites



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Angst and Porn, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Masturbation in Bathroom, Mutual Masturbation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-04-27 20:46:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5063497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awriterthatwrites/pseuds/awriterthatwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Yup. She’s gonna just tuck this incident back there with all those other things. ‘Cause she’s 100% sure as fuck that of all the things she’s supposed to *not* know about her roommate, this ranks up there as numero fucking uno."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 3x04 frustrated me immensely. Enough so that I can't give Crane his desire to consummate his fealty to America. 
> 
> But I still want them, in theory, to git it. At some point.
> 
> Based off of: “We share a roof, Crane. I know a lot of things I cannot unknow.”

The house is silent.

Gone is the _rat-tat-tat_ of muffled FPS games; the hard slam of metal on wood as Crane downs yet another soda between respawns. The living room’s bereft of scurvy louses and shodden herrings, of empty potato chip bags and sugar-ringed civics books.

The house is empty of Crane, and Abbie is lousy with gratitude.

Normally, she wouldn't be. Normally, a mild panic seizes her in the silence of the late hour. There are nights when she’ll come home, feet slipping along cool tile as she pads from room to room, reassuring herself that he’s still there. That he hasn’t up and left. That the words he spoke, the promises of settling in the here and now, still sit weighty as load-stones about his neck, tying him down to this place, this time.

But then…there are nights like tonight. After a day where a trip to the dentist had turned Crane loopy as his morning cereal; after his arrogance had cut harsh against her like steel wool, grating on every last nerve; after she felt like she’d been carting around a goddamn toddler all day. _I'm addoorabbllle._

_Jackass._

Abbie opens the fridge, searching for a beer. Idly, she wonders what Danny’s up to. What it would be like if tall, dark and British weren't always hovering around; a perpetual, live-in cockblocker.

The lager’s cold and bitter as it rushes down her throat, soothing her ramshackle nerves. She settles into the couch, feet on the coffee table, and grabs the remote. Maybe they're marathoning _Housewives._ Or _Shame._

She tilts back, taking a long, deep chug as she flips through the channels.

…And that’s when she hears it. A muffled creak. Coming from upstairs.

Her hand’s on her gun before she even knows she’s shelved the beer. Feet on the stairs, methodical and quiet as they inch up, avoiding the planks she knows’ll whine.

There’s a light at the end of the hall. Not Crane’s bedroom. Not hers. The bathroom.

Mentally, she does the check. Jenny’s at Mabey’s, Joe’s on duty. Crane hadn’t responded to texts, but then again…

The creaks grow louder as she approaches. Rhythmic. In that particular way. 

She freezes. Puts down the gun. Growing up with teenage boys in foster care taught her real fast what those creaks meant. Underneath bunkbeds and in closets and once, at the back of a school behind the bushes.

Abruptly, she holsters her weapon and about-faces. She'll go back downstairs, crank up the TV, crack open a few more beers, and pass out with a nice buzz. She’ll wake up tomorrow and tuck this into the back of her mind with all the other things she doesn’t want to know about him: the feel of his clothes freshly laundered; the way he smells after a shower; the obscene way he fondles the coffee-maker to get it to work in the morning.

Yup. She’s gonna just tuck this incident back there with all those other things. ‘Cause she’s 100% sure as fuck that of all the things she’s supposed to not know about her roommate, this ranks up there as numero fucking uno.

 _Do not pass go, Mills. Do not collect 200_.

But her body already knows what her mind’s too stubborn to compute. Too stubborn, because her feet have already taken her there, to the thin sliver that pours light into the blackened hallway. And so she approaches, a moth drawn to a capricious flame.

She hears it more than sees it at first; a low, consistent moan thrumming between then gap.

And then her eyes move towards the incandescence, pushing through the pitch darkness around her, peering in between. And there: slumped against her sink, legs spread wide, eyes closed and mouth agape as he works his cock between large, capable hands, is Ichabod fucking Crane.

Ruining home-alone nights since 1776.

She closes her mouth before a sound can escape, the tableau at once intimate and profane.

Her training kicks in first, and her cop eyes intake like she's at a crime scene. She notes the important details: the way his hair mats against his face; the width of his feet against the tile; the ripple of muscle flexed taut with each stroke; the way he grips the shaft with all four fingers, thumb ghosting over the top as it spreads moisture there.

 _Lot of moisture_ , she thinks idly, watching his thumb work. It rubs a surprisingly thick head, bulbous and pink as it strains up, seeking. The rest of him is thick, too; thick enough for the entirety of his long fingers to wrap tight around the shaft; thick enough so that, in theory, if he were getting head, there’d be a little adjusting to do.

Abbie’s tongue reflexively hits the roof of her mouth, chasing the thought.

It’s comforting, really, that her hypothesis of what's underneath his obscene trousers is playing out. Encouraging to know her instinct's right.

 _Jesus_. _It’s not a damn hypothesis,_ she thinks wildly. _It’s a cock. Crane’s cock._ And it’s there, right there. So close she can almost taste it.

He's pumping hard and fast; strokes heavy and punishing as he drives himself towards mindless release.

Abbie watches him for a long while. Eyes losing their analytical edge to linger on less important things: the cut of his clenched jaw; the lashes flush against his cheek; the small, shuddering pants that seem to make the wound on his chest jump with each stroke.

He sucks his cheeks in, breaths choppy in the stillness.

She wonders what he’s thinking.

“Christ, yes,” he mutters.

It’s enough to jolt her back, the sound deafening and intrusive between them. _Between them?_

_Oh no. Oh no, no, no._

Abbie takes a step back, sobered by the thought. What in the holy hell is she doing?

Her room. She'll go to her room. Change. Put her hair up. Play some Beyonce real loud.

But her hand’s already, ridiculously, in her pants. It’s been there since — _Jesus, when did it get there?_ — sliding against soaked panties, fingers steadily gravitating towards...

 _No._ She can’t touch herself. Won’t allow it. Yet. Absurdly, she’s waiting on him. Waiting for him to say something, anything, that confirms what he’s imagining. _Who_ he’s imagining.

She won’t do it, otherwise. Can’t do it; be party to the Katrinas or the Betsys or the historical fangirl society that follows him around like a goddamn welcome wagon, buttering him up like he's a fucking  _loaf_ of Wonder Broad.

Nope. There are lines, and there are lines. Jerking off to your partner while he jerks himself off is one thing; doing it while he’s thinking about someone else is entirely another.

Except...

Except his painted mouth is so wet and so open, his tongue darting out to punctuate his thrusts, that she can’t help but wonder what it would feel like between her thighs.

Delving through her slickness and into her heat and over her slippery hard clit that begs for harsh teeth and rough tongue and maybe, just maybe, the scrape of beard. Lips that part her thighs and incisors (very clean ones, now) that bite into her flesh, that drag mercilessly, unrepentantly, across her skin until she’s shivering and crying with the ache of it.

She presses a thumb to her clit, nearly gasping with relief. But it’s not enough. Not quite ever enough with him.

Crane’s two-handing now; massaging and cupping and rolling his sac beneath a dark thatch of hair; pulling and tugging as he slows and quickens, hips swirling involuntarily towards something — or someone — she can’t see.

“Yes, love,” he soothes, hands frantic now as he takes up a harsh rhythm, hard and heavy and _is that what it sounds like when he’s about to come? Is that what he looks like when he’s inside?_

“Yes,” he moans now, louder, and Abbie has to brace herself against the wall, mouth falling into the crook of her elbow as she sinks against it, steeling herself against the small, deceitful flutter that tells her she’s close.

There is no way she’s gonna come.

There’s no way she’s _not_ gonna come.

Not with him like this, obscene moans spilling from the other side of the door that make her small fingers curl into the slickness of her folds, sliding and pumping into the small, tight space that pulses with each shuddering breath, beating in time to their strokes that somehow, miraculously, seem to be in sync.

“Forgive me, my darling Treasure,” he breathes. His abdomen goes lax, his head tilted back in suspended animation as he begs forgiveness from whoever rises above him — or beneath him — fuck, she can’t even tell anymore —

And then he's gone. Jerking into his palm once, twice, harsh and fierce, and she’s nearly deafened by the long, low bellow that’s pulled out of him as he comes, spilling onto the floor of her Ethan Allen tiles.

She watches, eyes glued to the head of his cock as she imagines sliding her mouth over and down his release, lapping and sucking on him as he leaks into nothingness. His thrusts continue, slow and steady as he empties himself, hands covered in effluent and mouth ripe and wet as his tongue darts out to taste his sweat, drops lingering on the tip of his beard.

She wants to taste them. Drink them. Drown herself in the salt of them.

Instead, she staggers back, hand reluctantly sliding from the confines of too-tight jeans as she trips down the hall to her bedroom.

Quietly, she shuts the door, still abuzz with swollen desire. Much as she wants it - hell, craves it - she can’t do it. Won’t do it. Because she needs to know...needs to hear him say it. Without that, there is no release. No relief from the torture of unknowing. 

Abbie turns the knob slowly, mindful to release the lock in silence. She’s always been good at hiding. Always good at covering her tracks.

Down the hall, another door shuts quietly, the man behind it still stunned by the aftermath of an unexpected turn, still hazy with wonder at what he insists must be sheer hallucination. Because the shadow that had danced in the hallway could not have possibly been anything more than a figment of his lecherous thoughts. Was naught but a passing wish of a debauched mind. It had been far too small, far too diminutive and graceful to be anything real. To be anything he dares speak of. 

“Forgive me, love,” he whispers once again, hoping that she will hear it. That somehow, it will seep through the walls between them and scuttle into her ear as she dreams.


	2. A Known Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crane's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's an angst buffet, ya'll. Bon appetit. *tucks bib in, sits down with two plates*.

The house is silent.

Gone is the soft padding against wood that marks the Leftenant’s gait as she ambles through the house, made all the more charming by her heel-less height. Gone are the lights that herald her presence — a presence far more absent now that the FBI keeps her well into the evening. Gone are the mugs on the table, which fuel their late-night investigations; gone is her scent, which he direly misses.

The house is empty of Leftenant, and Crane is ornery with aimlessness.

Normally, he revels in solitude. He had enjoyed the remoteness of Sheriff Corbin’s cabin; misses the ease with which he used to commune with nature and lose himself in its primeval stillness.

But on a night like tonight, he would rather not be alone. He has become accustomed to watching horrid reality TV with her; sharing Chinese leftovers; washing the dishes as she dries. He’s become a creature of habit at Mills Manor, and cares little for the disruption of his - _their_ \- routine.

Crane lingers on the memory of the way she’d looked at him in the Government office several days afore; coy eyes sweeping up his frame as she’d sauntered off to her Agenting duties. Miss Jenny had referred to it as “giving the once-over” upon consultation, and the thought sends a pleasant warmth trilling through his chest.

There is no denying the building _frisson_ between the Leftenant and he; one that has become all the more acute now that they share a roof. If his awareness of her had once extended to the time they spent together, that awareness is now pervasive. There is little he does not observe, little he does not sense. Yet owing to their new boundaries, he holds his tongue much more than is his wont - especially on matters of the heart.

 _Like this Reynolds fellow,_ he muses, turning the shower spigot on. _What relationship had they shared? Were there still feelings there? Ones she wished to act upon?_

The hot water spurts, filling the room with steam, and it diverts his thoughts. Crane steps underneath the showerhead with a grateful moan. He is still as yet unaccustomed to the abundance of heated bathing water despite his years in the modern era, and alone, he is free to revel in its abundance without consequence. There is no small fist banging at the door, seeking a forgotten hairdryer, no voice commanding him to not leave the towels on the floor, no — in one particularly awkward instance — no timid head poking itself around the doorframe, asking for the brassiere that had been left hanging beneath his towel.

It had been sheer. And made of lace.

Crane clears his throat, shuttling the thought from his mind. These are the treacherous seeds that must not be left to bear fruit. He won’t think of the unmentionables she wears under those impossibly tight shirts; shirts that are nearly transparent if gazed at in the right light. He won’t recall the way her chemise had felt in his hands that one unfortunate morning, fingers ghosting over the fabric as his eyes had eagerly devoured the soft shell. He can’t possibly imagine her in it; though their encounter with the Sandman had left little doubt as to what she’d look like beneath…

_Damn eidetic memory._

His fingers flex against the wall, eyes automatically dropping as they seek to avoid the images in his mind, but alight instead on another inconvenience.

He is hard. Yet again.

Crane exhales steadily. Contemplates for a brief moment taking himself in hand.

And abruptly turns the shower off and steps out.

He won’t. He can’t. To befoul the generosity she has already shown him by relegating her to the lecherous stretches of his imagination — _well._ He owes her a level of decorum. Of protocol. Fences, and such.

Except…

Except it is late and he is alone, and the multiplication tables he usually reverts to aren’t working.

Resigned, he takes himself in hand, braces himself against the sink, and tries to think dutifully of his wife.

It is not that he still feels obligated to her. Not in the least. Rather, it is that she hearkens back to a simpler time; a simpler moment in his life. Before the veil of ignorance lifted around his duty, role, and future. Before impossible Leftenants left silken unmentionables in his handwashing basket.

He pulls hard, setting up a punishing rhythm he hopes will finish him soon.

Eyes squeezed tight, he shuffles the memories like cards, attempting to wrest emotion from each. His first time with Katrina; their wedding night; those small lapses with Betsy, thrilling as they were in the instance because they were forbidden. He tries to recall their expressions, the moments of lust, of longing —

But he can only conjure one image. One set of large doe eyes that stare up at him skeptically; a round, supple mouth ever-tinged with a hint of amusement as it purses at his ramblings. The impossibly soft slope of skin that collapses into a V-neck, hinting at a bounty that is…

 _No,_ he tells himself, harsh breaths. He _will not._

Another hard tug. Redder now, hand furious and skin chafed as he pumps, punishing himself for straying. _Not her not her not_ —

And his mind mutinies, conjuring her small hands on his thighs.

“Christ, yes,” he mutters.

If he can just think of her hands. Just her hands. Of something that is not her face, or her voice, or her mouth. A mouth made for kissing, for suckling, for laving the head of his painfully hard…

“Yes love,” he groans before he can stop himself. Her quick fingers make light work of the buttons on his pants, small digits eagerly parting the placket to slide underneath. Her soft lips — _could they be anything but?_ — press against the crest of his hip, ghost underneath his abdomen, inhaling the musk of him.

And then her mouth slides over and up, the rough hot flat of her tongue licking him from tip to base.

He bucks into his hand. “Yes.” Loud moans now. Blatant paroxysms. _I am going to hell,_ he thinks.

His feet brace further apart to steady himself as he pumps furiously, mind now arrested by the image of her large, soulful eyes gazing up at him as she slides her mouth down and over, down and over, stoking the blinding pressure within. A pressure that’s tightening, hardening, arching towards inevitable release.

He thinks he hears a gasp; so small and slight that it barely registers. One eye cracks open, noting the strange arc of shadow dancing in the crack of the door.

His lust-addled mind reads it as fantasy. Tells him he’s imagining things. But it does not stop him from matching his strokes to the shadow’s. Adjusting the pace just so, beginning a steady rhythm that churns his hips into the warm air as he imagines her beneath him, over him, encased fully around him, strong thighs gripping him as he drives mercilessly within her.

He shouldn’t be thinking such thoughts. He _mustn’t._ He _won’t._

Except — God’s wounds — he’s _close_.

So close that he dare not utter a name, not any phrase that might give him away. That may hint at the debauchery occurring in his addled mind.

She deserves more than this. So much more.

 _Abbie,_ he thinks, thrusting into the air as he seeks the clasp of her warm depths. _Abbie,_ he moans, imagining the scrape of nails on his back. _Abbie_. He jerks once, twice, the pressure too full, the urge to sweet to resist, and imagines her mouth wrapping fully around him as it prepares for his inexorable release.

“Forgive me, my darling treasure,” he pants. _Forgive me my thoughts. My absence. My reticence._

The shadow mewls. It’s the smallest of sounds — more like a half-swallowed cry, and it ends him.

He spills into the emptiness, gasping in release as his body gives way. He comes for what feels like hours: over his hand, down his thigh, onto the pristine tiles. In his mind’s eye, she swallows every last drop, drinking in the salt and tang of him with unabashed enthusiasm. In his mind’s eye, she tilts her hips up, begging him to release within her as he drives into her again and again, wresting the cries of his name from her swollen lips.

He sags against the sink, recovering. Inhaling lungfuls of breath. At length, his mind clears. Rational thought slowly returns. He runs a hand through matted hair, reddening in equal parts relief and horror as he hears the barest hint of footsteps. Good _Christ._ Had she seen him? Surely not. Surely he was hearing things. Surely this was another late-night phantasm born of overbearing desire. 

He cleans up thoroughly, ensuring he does not leave a trace of his nocturnal activity. That would surely make for an awkward roommate conversation in the morning.

Crane slinks down the hall as stealthily as one can against aging wood. Shuts the door softly and lays down. Begs her pardon in the ensuing stillness, the words unconsciously lapsing into a recitation of Hail Marys. _Hail Mary, full of grace_ …

He's on his third round when he suddenly sits straight up, eyes boring through the darkness as realization fires through him hot like a shot of rum. He throws off the covers and makes haste towards her bedroom, not even bothering to disguise his footfall. He’s too powered by adrenaline to play coy. Too resolute to pretend he’s just up for a glass of water.

 _Don’t overthink it,_ Master Corbin had advised. _Bloody right._

He halts at her door, fist raised as he prepares to knock and rid them both of this foolery. But the light beneath is extinguished. Silence reigns. Hesitation seizes him, warping a determined fist into a seeking palm that falls softly against the wood, as if the pads of his fingers can seep through the very grain and feel her slumbering form.

Inside her room, Abbie watches the shadow of Crane’s feet block out the light beneath her door. She can feel his gaze, determined yet uncertain, waiting. Waiting on her. For a sign. The smallest iota of permission. 

She finds herself stubbornly burrowing into the covers. _Show me, Crane_ , she finds herself thinking. _Make the move and I’ll follow_.

Abbie suspends her breath as she wills the silence to enfold her, all senses primed to pick up the slightest hint of sound.

At length, the shadow beneath the door turns and disappears, leaving a bright sliver of light in its wake.

She stares at the line long after he’s gone.

Long after the house settles and sleeps.

She stares. And stares. And stares.


	3. Chalk It Up To A Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It could be mistaken for a shift of the sheets. For a strange, impertinent breeze somehow wafting through the room. But she knows, and he knows — and she knows that he knows. 
> 
> The way they both did in the hallway."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. There goes my promise to no longer write trash for this trash show. Goddammit ya'll. *Says 10 Hail Marys and jumps back into dumpster*

* * *

 

Crane dreams.  

There are fragments of memory that cling to the dreamscape. Of Katrina and Betsy; the smell of soot and the sound of gunfire. Of rollicking hills and fetid horse manure. And then, there is the lifeless body of his wife, and his arm, twisting behind her and the feel of the knife as it pierces skin —

_No._

The wound deeper still —

_NO._

The weight of her body as it sinks in his arms —

_“NO!”_

There are hands on him. Strong and surprisingly resilient against his flailing form. There’s pressure: on his shoulders, his legs. An unnameable heaviness he wishes desperately to be rid of.

He kicks at the insufferably hot duvet and flips over, shoving the weight beneath him. It’s soldier’s instinct really — a gut reaction to neutralize the threat. He bears down, pushing with all his strength until all quiets beneath him. 

Only then does he open his eyes.

He is half-convinced that he slumbers yet — for what is beneath him cannot surely be beneath him. There’s enough light that filters into the room — just enough to convince him it’s not a mirage.

Large, wide eyes that stare up in shock, and a deceitfully swollen mouth that purses with surprise. The Leftenant is flush against him: wrists under his palms, ribs against his stomach, feet entangled at his knees.

She shifts — perhaps to gain a foothold, or to escape the crushing weight of his somnolent form — but it is a precarious shift no less, one that settles him firmly between her thighs.

Abbie’s breath hitches. Crane's pressed against her in flannel-thin pajamas that might as well be made of air, the way they disguise nothing. He is hard and thick and ready and _it’s totally natural_ , she tells herself, mind racing to rationalize. _He thinks he’s still dreaming, Mills_.

She wonders if she can play it off. Can pretend like she’s part of whatever fantasyland ex-British soldiers roam around in while they sleep. If she could just get out from beneath him…

“Leftenant?”

_Shit._

Though his voice is hoarse, his eyes are clear. Wide and stunned and not nearly as confused as she’d hoped they’d be.

“You were screaming. I thought — ” Beneath, he twitches, and she inhales sharply.

“Apologies,” he breathes.

But he can’t quite conjure the emotion to match the sentiment. Because he’s not. Not really. Not with her against him like this, shorts riding up with lecherous abandon around her silken legs, her disheveled shirt exposing a delicious band of soft stomach that rubs against the flat expanse of his.

No, he is not quite sorry at all.

“Crane. I should —”

“Yes, of course.”

But she won’t. And he most certainly can’t. Because as much as his erection is the unwelcome reality they’re both trying to ignore, there's also the small matter of her arousal, which hangs thick in the air like an indecent perfume.

Abbie bites back a curse. The memory of the hallway: his form, the sounds, the _sight_ — she'd carried all of that into sleep. Her mind had even riffed on it, adding his mouth against her legs, his hands on her thighs, hips sinking low as she opened to welcome his…

_Aw, hell to the fuck no._

“Crane.” She pushes against the long fingers wrapped around her wrists, and this time, he lets go. Promptly rolls off and to the side, body heat falling off of her like a warm blanket.

And she’s close, so goddamn close to getting up and out of this nightmare —

But the blankets. The fucking blankets are tangled. Her foot catches in them. She trips, flails, and falls — right back onto Crane.

“Oof.” His hands are on her before she can recover. One at her back, protective, and the other at her thigh, steadying. Abbie realizes with a slow burn on her cheeks that she’s now straddling him. Fucking straddling this infuriating bean pole of a man, and she almost laughs at the absurdity of it — he, murmuring an apology for _her_ gaff as he nobly attempts to maneuver them apart, disguising the need in his eyes beneath a curtain of unkempt hair.

Her shorts are now even higher — if that’s possible — and the arousal she’s tried so hard to contain, so hard to pretend away, hits Crane full in the nostrils as she struggles atop him.

And _God’s wounds_ , he can’t help but exhale in hungry approval.

A renewed sense of longing thrums through Abbie’s veins at the sound, softening and opening and pulsing...

 _Fuck this._ She’s gotta get out of here. If she can just —

And then fingers, soft and hesitant, ghosting up her thigh. Could be mistaken for a shift of the sheets. For a strange, impertinent breeze somehow wafting through the room. But she knows, and he knows — and she knows that he knows.

The way they both did in the hallway.

His fingers are boldly tracing wisps up her legs, gliding along the hem of her shorts, playing at the boundary between cloth and skin. He wants to touch. To explore further. But he’s waiting. For a sign. Permission. _Anything._

Abbie puts her ear to his chest and listens to the quickened thrum of his heart. There’s life in him. Life that had been drained by a knife wound scant weeks ago. Life that had disappeared from her for 9 months. Life that's demanding to be acknowledged. Recognized. _Claimed._

But she can't. Not like this. Not after...

“Crane."

His nose is in her hair. Mouth at her temple. Patient. 

She squeezes her eyes shut. “We can't.”

“Of course.”

She presses her palms into his collarbone, fingers into his neck. “I don’t want this.”

“Neither do I, Leftenant.” His hands glide down, cupping the supple glory of her rear.

"I’m gonna go back to bed,” she vows.

“As am I,” he replies, hands traveling lower.

“S — see you in the morning.”

“Until the morn, then.”

They’re both surprised by how fast he reaches her underwear. Hands glide underneath her shorts, pass the thin barrier, and push back the scrap to tangle his fingers into moistened curls.

Her fingernails score his biceps.

“Sweet God in heaven,” he mutters. She is utterly soaked. A fact upon which he’d only allowed the briefest of contemplations before she’d landed in his bed. To know, to _burn_ with the reality of her not feet away, a furnace of glorious desire pooling just for him, _because_ of him… It had been too much to hope.

But now…his own senses overwhelm him with proof. Proof which he is happy to let her deny — let them deny — so long as she allows him to explore the full measure of it.

Abbie’s eyes are still closed. Senses zeroed in on the feel of the phantom hand in her shorts, touching with unerring tenderness. _A dream,_ she tells herself. _We’ll just chalk it up to that._ And because they’re already so deep in the denial game, she pushes down, into his palm, and stifles a mewl as his long fingers part her and delve within.

“Abbie.” He breathes her name — a mantra, a sigh.

 _Don’t talk,_ she thinks, squeezing her eyes shut. _Don’t talk, don’t talk…_

Her breath hitches as one long finger runs along her slick folds, worrying the nub at her center that’s tight with need, and then a hesitant moment — two, and he is slowly sliding a digit within.

Teeth latch hard to her bottom lip, trying like hell to stifle a curse. She doesn't dare let one word escape. For fear of all the other words that might then follow; the ones that speak of loss and grief and desire and need. Of the punishing emptiness she's felt at his departure. _None_ of it can get out — not on a porch, or on her couch, and especially not in media res of a midnight finger fuck.

So she focuses on the sensation. Of the way his finger thrusts into her, slow and deliberate. Of how he allows her to adjust to the sensation of fullness; of the rightness of fit, his body still and patient as she engulfs him. Of how his thumb glides along the slickness of her skin, gathering the desire pooling there, and slides it deftly across her clit. Hard and sure.

Briefly, she wonders if this is how it would feel if he were inside her.

She hums against his shoulder at the thought, and the vibration thrums down his side, through his belly, and straight to his cock, which surges against the thin fabric of his pants. She feels the twitch beneath her and grinds down in response. And that’s how they move — her hips grinding, his finger stroking, breaths syncing as he strives to pleasure her within the confines that she has set.

Crane chances another digit into her impossibly tight depths. She is small, but sinfully wet, and is rewarded with a high moan this time — one she can’t disguise. He smiles; pleased that he is able to undo her even in this small measure.

He quickens the pace, fingers stroking rhythmically as he circles her nub, and her body opens with increasing fervor, so that when she begins to swirl and grind her hips down, his digits all but disappear to the hilt, seated fully within her. She shudders out a curse, and his mouth is at her ear before he can stop himself.

“Enjoying ourselves, are we?”

Silence.

In response, he slows his fingers.

She rears back. “Move.”

“Are we?” He stills, content to torment her until he receives the answer he seeks.

“Yeah,” she finally stutters, hips churning impatiently around his immobile digits. “Yes, OK? Just — just…”

She’s too far gone to notice that she’s moved her head into his neck, mouth pressed against the hollow of his throat. He takes a moment to brush the hair from her face, thumb ghosting along the expanse of her cheek, her jaw.

Then, he’s sliding an arm to anchor her in place as he resumes the pace — a slow, hard rhythm that has her thighs clutching at his hips with every stroke.

“I would have you like this, Abigail.” His mouth is at her ear, squeezing at her with possessive fervor. “Under me, over me, as was your wont.”

"Shutup, Crane."

Thumb flicking faster now, her body growing wetter with each abominable word. “So many nights, Abbie. Edinburgh, my detention cell. Thinking of you, of this —”

“ _Crane._ Shut _up_."

"Your mouth, your form…this…impossibly small —”

“ _Crane. Shut_  — _the — fuck —_ ”

“Of what it would be like to feel you. To taste you. To —”

 _“Upppp!”_ She shudders around him, her body pulsing as it races towards its final peak. His mouth is at her ear, torturing the delicate shell with each hot word that’s murmured; his fingers, long and deep, reaching places she can never seem to get to with her own; and his thumb, harsh and steady against the tight nub that grows harder with each passing stroke, winding her body tighter and tighter — toes curling, thighs squeezing, panting from the strain of it...

A curious index curls within her, expertly worrying flesh that’s swollen and overripe — and —

_“Fuckkkkkk.”_

Crane feels the shudder permeate her body as she comes, wracking him from neck to toe. It’s an otherworldly sight, the way she vibrates and writhes in an ephemeral rhythm, eyes flying open and gazing heavenward, as if to glean salvation from the ceiling. Beneath, she clenches insistently around his fingers, the small, scalding inferno clutching at his digits with unrepentant strength and abandon. _Here_ is where he wants to be. Where he needs to be. 

Briefly, he imagines himself within her, his cock replacing his fingers as he drives deep, spilling himself unabashedly as he claims her. Possesses her with a reckless finality that shoves the Daniels and all the others deeply into an abyss of forgotten memories, from which they never emerge.

A moment to contemplate the possibility of something more. The briefest of indulgences.

And then, cold air is hitting him as he finds himself suddenly bereft of her form.

She’s on the other side of the room, panting, half-naked, thighs still slick with arousal. Looking at him as she’d look at any sort of animal: wary, hesitant, with the slightest hint of fear. And beneath that — far more painful than that — a sort of lostness. One that he knows all too well; one that had plagued him during his absence.

It is the look of someone who is utterly alone.

Instinct compels him towards her. “Abbie—“

But she’s already closing the door, leaning against it and twisting the knob so he can’t follow. She takes a moment to steady her breath, to ease the heaviness that sinks through her, pressing her into the wood like a weighty specter. Quickly, she wipe her eyes and clears her throat to test its strength. A moment. And then: “Get some sleep, Crane. Gotta be up early tomorrow."

A pause. She hears him draw a breath. “Indeed, Leftenant.”

He waits a moment, two. Straining to hear the slightest pause as she retreats to the isolation of her room; the smallest hesitation that signals uncertainty. That the door is not fully closed. That there is yet hope.

Crane hears the door close softly. The light extinguishes.

It is only hours later, as he lays awake, unblinking, that he hears it. Heaving breaths, muffled by the walls between them. A stifled cry. He brings his hand to his mouth, fingers still doused with her scent, and wonders idly if the salt of her tears tastes the same.


End file.
